Apparatus and method for indicating a release version in a signal field of a frame preamble

ABSTRACT

A method performed by a first wireless device may comprise determining a fixed length sequence of bits corresponding to a release version identifier and determining CRC bits based on the fixed length sequence of bits. A frame may be transmitted, to a second wireless device, on one of a plurality of wireless links established between the first wireless device and the second wireless device. The frame may comprise a preamble portion comprising a signal field. The frame may also comprise the CRC bits. The signal field may be comprised of a first portion and a second portion, the first portion comprising the fixed length sequence of bits and the second portion not comprising the fixed length sequence of bits. The first portion may be transmitted before the second portion. The second portion may include bits indicative of characteristic information corresponding to the release version.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 16/421,034 filed May 23, 2019 which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/677,016 filed on May 27, 2018, U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/728,032 filed on Sep. 6, 2018, U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/775,342 filed on Dec. 4, 2018, U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/800,464 filed on Feb. 2, 2019 and U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/830,478 filed on Apr. 7, 2019, the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein.

SUMMARY

A method performed by a first wireless device may comprise determining a fixed length sequence of bits corresponding to a release version identifier and determining cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits based on the fixed length sequence of bits. A frame may be transmitted, to a second wireless device, on one of a plurality of wireless links established between the first wireless device and the second wireless device. The frame may comprise a preamble portion comprising a signal field. The frame may also comprise the CRC bits. The signal field may be comprised of a first portion and a second portion, the first portion comprising the fixed length sequence of bits and the second portion not comprising the fixed length sequence of bits. The first portion may be transmitted before the second portion. The second portion may include bits indicative of characteristic information corresponding to the release version.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an illustration of an embodiment in which a capability identifier (ID) is included in an attach request message.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In next generation radio technologies, a user equipment (UE) capability identifier (ID) may specify or indicate capabilities which are common across various devices and device types. This capability ID may be signaled or used in a registration request or other message to a network, for example during initial access, handover, association, random access or the like. In response to a registration request, which may or may not include a capabilities transmission, the UE may receive a registration area configuration with an indication that capabilities are acceptable for a registered area. All registered capabilities or a portion of the registered capabilities may be accepted or acceptable by the network. A network, for example, an Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) and a next generation Node B (gNB) may send a capability enquiry message to the UE for responding, by the UE, with the capability information, i.e. the capability ID. The network may assign a new capability to the UE once the UE is determined to have an enhanced capability.

Support for a capability identifier may itself be a capability of a UE which may need to be reported prior to the capability identifier. There may be common sets of capabilities defined, for example, using a database or lookup table (LUT) method which provides an index to a particular capability identifier based on a type, classification, code, capability or the like. There may be a lookup performed, by the UE for example using Huffman coding, or LZW coding etc. A more typical cellular based coding may be employed, for example, a gold sequence may be used to signify levels of a particular capability. Using a gold sequence, a particular sequence of bits may refer to the capability, while the shift in the sequence refers to a capability version. A coding or hashing of a portion of the capability identifier may be indicated by a manufacturer specific or public land mobile network (PLMN) specific portion of the capability identifier. The ID may be sent in RRC, MAC, NAS or other signaling protocols. A DCI may indicate resources for the transmission of the capability ID. One or more capability IDs may represent access stratum vs. non access stratum capabilities. In an embodiment, a capability ID may be included in a MAC header, for example, coded in a duration/ID field.

A hash of the capabilities may be performed via a secure hash algorithm (SHA) hash or another secure hash. A UE may support a capability to compress information before transmission or decompress information after reception. The compression may be used to compress/decompress the capability ID itself. The capability identifier may be compressed, for example at a radio resource control (RRC), Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer or other layer and may also be segmented if necessary. A system information block (SIB) may indicate a type of compression used and the UE may respond with a compressed capability ID according to the compression type. Compression may be lossy compression or lossless compression. One base station may provide lossy information compression while another provides less lossy or lossless compression information. An ID may be transmitted along with other UE parameters including a unique UE identifier. A UE ID may be permanent or be comprised of a permanent portion and a temporary portion, for example, similar to a changing RSA code. A UE ID may comprise a portion of an International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), for example, a TAC/FAC. The UE ID may contain a checksum.

A device may or may not recognize a UE capability ID. For example a base station, relay TRP etc. may not have seen a newer device which has a recent capability ID. The base station may request a capability table from the UE so that the device can update it set of capabilities. Alternatively, the device may reach out to a network entity, for example, an HLR etc for an updated table to match the transmitted capability ID of the UE. Capability IDs may be stored in the RAN or core network. Capability ID may be reported as a delta from a previous capability ID.

FIG. 1 illustrates embodiments 100, 120, 140 in which a capability ID may be provided to a network. In a first embodiment 100, a UE 102, for example a vehicle, may receive a UE capability request 106 from a gNB 104. In response, the UE 102 may provide a UE capability information message 108 including a UE capability ID to the gNB 104. In a second embodiment 120, a UE 122 may send an attach request 126 to a gNB 124. An attach response 128 sent from the gNB 124 to the UE 122 may or may not request a capability ID. The UE 122 may respond with a registration message including a UE capability ID 130. In a third embodiment 140, a UE 142 may transmit an attach request message 146 including a UE capability ID. The gNB 144 may respond with an attach response 148 indicating acceptance of the UE capabilities.

If the network cannot discern the capability ID, the network may request the UE transmit capability bitmap or a capability indicator in another format. The capability ID may include cellular specific elements only, for example, an ability to communicate via a particular protocol or a device type (new radio, LTE, machine type communication (MTC), narrowband, etc). The capability ID may also indicate non cellular specific information such as a high level device type, for example, a vehicle or drone. In this way, vehicle specific information may be includes, i.e. car, motorcycle, vessel or the like. One vehicle specific example includes a capability of detecting and reporting fog, by the car, motorcycle, vessel or the like. This ability to indicate something for which a cellular network may have no information to may be performed via a lookup to a manufacturer (for example Ford or Nissan) or a standard based organization (3GPP, NIST, or the like).

In some examples, the capability identifier may be multi-format capable, for example, it may include a base indicator plus additional features or capabilities. In one example, a 5G release version may be a base indication and feature characteristics may be appended. The base features may be considered mandatory while add on capabilities are considered optional. There may be specific numbering and identification of or for a 5G system architecture. There may also be application to USIM/ISIM application/HPSIM and USAT. The capability identifier may provide or indicate support for group message capability. It may also indicate radio access technology type. Examples of base features may also include an indication of supported modulation types, for example 256 QAM for a downlink shared channel or pi/2-BPSK for an uplink control channel for example. Modulation types may be supported on a per band basis, a per BWP basis etc. For example, 256 QAM may not be supported while a 128 QAM modulation is supported. Control channels may consist of or may be comprised of 32 or 64 control channel elements. Uplink control channel formats may be any format in the range of [0:10] or more.

A capability indicator may be used to report capability for virtual reality aspects including graphics processing capabilities, microphone capabilities, speaker capabilities, headset capabilities, etc. Other capabilities may include 3D audio capabilities. For example, a capability for supporting virtual reality chat may be exchanges in addition to support for other chat/messaging services. If virtual reality chat is not available, a call may fall back to video chat or audio chat. Alternatively, a text based chat may also be one embodiment. In one embodiment, 3D audio may be channel, object or scene based and each one of these may be separate capabilities reported. 3D video may also be supported by a UE with or without the use of glasses. For example, a UE may be configured to support one or more point cloud attributes of 3D video including certain color triples and reflectance attributes. A UE may support a holographic display with a wave guide or other means. Alternatively, legacy only audio support may be indicated. A number of supported channels, codecs, number of MOPS and/or sampling rates may be provided. In one embodiment, a sampling device may be integrated into a baseband chipset. In this way, sampling, for example, an accelerometer input may be done by a same chipset as which is converting the sampled information to transmission data. This may lower latency in a surgical system, anatomical vision system or mission critical system. Thus, a remote doctor/analyst may be provided with images and control information from an imaging device, for example, an endoscope or other scope.

Simultaneous transmissions may occur on fixed frequency or beam offsets. For example, two same transmissions may occur at different frequency positions. Transmissions may change over time, for example, at a next TTI in time, the frequency positions of both simultaneous transmissions may change with respect to the previous transmission.

Any message, data structure or parameter disclosed herein may be either a fixed or variable format or length. A Boolean value may specify whether fixed or variable. If variable, a number of fields or a length field may be included to signal the length or size of a message or other field.

UE capabilities may also correspond to QoS instances or supported QoS instances. In one embodiment, there may be a particular QoS identifier used to indicate QoS levels of an LTE or 5G or beyond network device or UE. A bitrate capability may be measured in kilobits, megabits, gigabits per second. There may also be a priority (or QoS specific) level specific to LTE or 5g. Other priority methods may operate based on PPPP or using a KPI, VQI or 5QI. Any parameter or level indicated may be represented by an integer (signed or unsigned) or boolean data type. Or any other type for that matter. QoS may also indicate a service type for example IPv4 or a traffic class in v6. QoS may be based on traffic flow (having a traffic flow ID) which may be associated with a radio bearer. QoS parameters or thresholds may change based on application specific information or other information, for example, QoS requirements may be negotiated using negation messages (negotiation request, negotiation accept or the like) and may depend on capability. Each device may deny a certain negotiation request but provide a negotiation response message with another request.

A UE capability ID may provide support for group messaging. For low capability devices, a services capability server (SCS) or application server (AS) may assign a group ID to all UEs within a certain location which all have a UE common capability threshold. The group ID may be considered internal or external. A message may include the group identifier and a payload. The group ID may be selected at random by the SCS, AS, TRP, gNB, AP, STA, etc. In one embodiment, a UE may cycle through group IDs and once one is no longer used, the group ID may be assignable to another group of UEs or STAs etc. At a high level, any group message may be HTTP (get, post, etc) based. A message may also include the geographical location information of the group of UEs and include a delivery time, CRC and an indication of the common UE capability. An integrity check field or at least a checksum or CRC may be included in any message herein which represents any field herewith. Diffie Hellman may be used in one embodiment. In another embodiment, a SHA may be used.

An HTTP message may be sent from the SCS or AS containing the group ID. Upon receiving an http message, an SCEF may create resources for sending to the group of UEs.

A UE may monitor for a group message. The UE may use a publish/subscribe (pub/sub) paradigm to do so. Based on the UE capabilities and/or location the UE may subscribe to a particular group. In addition to receiving group messages, the UE may still receive individually addressed messages, for example, using pub/sub, label switching or other methods. A type of addressing may be provided in beacon frames or system information, etc.

Group messages may be secure such that non-group members may not decode the message. Security may comprise encryption which is achieved using a shared key passed to each group member. Alternatively, group members may each have a key used to decode or decrypt received content. The content should be shared content among the group. Content caching may be performed at the RAN, at the core network and in the internet, for example, at a content distribution network. Security information for groups or single UEs may be transmitted in a DCI format or other format. Keys may change when group members exit the group so that old members can no longer decrypt.

Group based authentication (one way or two way authentication) may be provided. In one embodiment, a group based keying mechanism may be employed in which each user has a shared key. Alternatively, rolling keys, public/private keys may also be employed. In one embodiment, content may be encrypted by each transmitter, for example AP, each time it is transmitted. In this way, groups which need a key are smaller since only so many devices may be associated per AP. Thus, the AP may be responsible for either providing an encryption key or providing keys for obtaining the encryption key

Using groups IDs, STAs may be targeted as a group or groups. Each one of the transmissions may employ 802.11 format type messages with SIG fields, MAC fields, or the like. Any one of the parameters or signals herein may be included in these SIG or MAC fields. A counter may be transmitted with each cascading transmission by the AP.

Devices that are capable of transmitting or receiving less than a full PRB, for example, sub-PRB capable devices, may indicate this capability to a cell or other transmission point. Devices may support differing modulation and coding schemes for transmitting or receiving on less than full PRB. A UE may be configured to report a number of supported resource blocks, PRBS or the like. A PRB bundle may be indicated in a DCI.

UEs may be capable of utilizing less than an entire allocation region, for example a resource block. This may allow a large group of UEs to be triggered and respond on a symbol/subcarrier basis. Alternatively, it may be that a portion of a resource block is dedicated to a high cost UE and only a single resource element is dedicated to the low cost UE. Devices that are capable of transmitting or receiving less than a full PRB may indicate this capability to a cell or other transmission point. Devices may support differing modulation and coding schemes for transmitting or receiving on less than full PRB. A UE may support code division multiple access CDMA, orthogonal frequency division multiple access OFDMA, power division multiple access, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), layered division multiplexing (LDM) or cognitive radio (CR). Other access schemes include multiple user shared access musa; Sparse Code Multiple Access (SCMA); Interleave-division multiple access (IDMA); interleave grid multiple access (IGMA); maximum likelihood resource spread multiple access (ml-rsma) or sl-rsma; low code rate spreading (LCRS); low code rate and signature based shared access; Welch bound equality spread multiple access (WSMA); resource spread multiple access. A UE may indicate support for any one of these technologies and may receive information (scheduling information, data, grant information, power of a primary user as compared to a secondary user, or the like) in accordance with the capability. For example, two co-scheduled UEs may both support SCMA and thus may be code multiplexed for scheduling/transmissions, or the like based on their location or network topology. UEs may be configured to switch between cyclic prefix (CP) CP-OFDM and DFT spread OFDM (DFT-S-OFDM).

Capability ID may be indicated to the cellular network over the LTE, 5G RAN or over WiFi, etc.

A capability of supporting session based or unstructured based connections may be reported by a UE. Infrastructure devices may be entirely foreign to a UE and thus a capability indicator may indicate modulation capabilities, e.g. what type of modulation is supported by the V2X UE. This indicator may be denoted as a 3GPP release indicator. For example, a V2X UE may only support sidelink or v2x communications of a particular release, for example, release 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, etc. Alternatively parameters may be more low level, for example, whether or not frequency hopping (for example, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 hops) is employed, capable configured frequencies of the V2X UE, etc. A frequency hopping parameter may indicate a selection of a table for frequency hopping. The indicator may indicate or infer a profile or other technology. In one embodiment, this indicator may be based on the capability ID of the V2X UE assuming the V2X UE is configured with a capability ID.

DCI formats may be based on UE capability. In some settings, v2x resources may be configured by a base station. These resources may be used for a first UE to communicate with a second UE and may change or be switched from transmission to transmission. Resource configurations may vary over time and each configuration may have an associated DMRS or associated uplink control information. The resources from the base station may be indicated over a first radio access network, while the transmission from UE to UE may occur over a different radio access network. One may be NR, one may be LTE, one may be WLAN or any other technology. In one embodiment, a WLAN frame may be modified by including any one of the parameters disclosed herein into a PLCP preamble, for example, into a SIG-A or SIG-B field of the PLCP preamble. The modified frame may be transmitted or received.

A base station may indicate capabilities, and may determine appropriate transmission characteristics, according to UE identifier to one or more devices for v2x/sidelink communication. For sidelink communication, a UE may be configured to communicate via groupcast transmissions. In one embodiment, the UE may be configured to use a lowest capability of any member of the group for a transmission. Sidelink transmissions may be transmitted according to one of OFDM or NOMA based on the capability information.

In some embodiments, a UE may have redundant circuitry. In fact, some UEs may implement dual cellular stack and dual hardware. This is so that each stack may be used to connect with a different base station and provide redundant (same time) access. This may improve throughput, reliability and latency. A gNB may report statistics, for example via broadcasting, as to the percentage of UEs which satisfy particular throughput, reliability and latency standards/requirements/thresholds.

Sequence numbers may be used by a UE for ordering of Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) protocol data units which may be transmitted or received by a UE. A UE may support and may indicate support for PDCP sequence numbers of varying sizes. For example, a UE with a particular capability may support 15 bit capability in a first mode, yet support an 18 bit capability in a second mode. In another mode, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26,27, 28, 29, 30, 31 or 32 bit PDCP sequence numbers may be supported. Sequence numbers may be included in broadcast, multicast or unicast frames.

PDCP sequence number sizing may be based on access technology. For each one of the access schemes disclosed herein, a different PDCP sequence number size may be used. In one embodiment, PDCP sequence numbers may be validated based on PDCP PDUs received from one or more network paths. In one embodiment, if a base station or UE detects that radio conditions are degraded in a dual connectivity scenario, the base station or UE may switch to a duplicative PDCP transmission method, if a plurality of paths are available, in which PDCP PDUs with a same sequence number are transmitted in parallel (in one embodiment, on different frequencies or using different radio access technologies). In one embodiment, the PDCP duplication method may be on a PCell/SCell, two different TRPs or provided to two different gNB, or on licensed vs. unlicensed bands. PDCP duplication may be initiated based on QoS, link quality, application layer priority, an availability of multiple cells or the like. An entire PDCP may not necessarily be completely duplicated, rather only a portion of the PDCP PDU, for example the header portion, may be transmitted in duplicate. A gNB may instruct a UE to duplicate or not duplicate, for example, a UE may not duplicate and may soft combine the received PDUs at a PDCP or lower layer, for example a PHY or MAC layer. Alternatively, or in combination, duplication may be performed based on a number of NACKs received or a timer.

The MIB or one or more SIBS may indicate whether or not a change in system information has occurred. This indicator may be a data structure which comprises a configuration change count including an integer number which wraps around once a maximum number is met. For example, an 8 bit configuration change count may wrap after 256 increments. A 9 bit may wrap after 512 and so forth. In another embodiment, the MIB may indicate a Boolean value that corresponds to a given time period. In this way, a UE may receive the Boolean value (bool, integer, bitmap, etc.) and determine whether or not a change has occurred based on the time it has not received recent system information. Bitmaps may be preferable when indicating status of a plurality of elements or parameters in a same indication. In an embodiment, a MIB or SIB may include a bitmap which represents which SIBs are transmitted or carried by the base station. There may be a bitmap which corresponds to other base stations as well, for example relay stations or stations of another technology/frequency. In another embodiment, the base station may provide system information change information of another node, base station or access point. This way, a UE may gain information about another node without having to reconnect. The another node or AP may be nearby the base station which transmits the information. In one embodiment, the information regarding change state of a base station may be relied by another network element. For example, a UE may be connected to a relay node which retransmits sync signals of a donor eNB. The relay node may be configured to indicate to the UE whether or not a MIB of the donor eNB has changed.

Network topologies may include coordinated transmission topologies or joint transmission topologies. Transmissions/receptions may be made simultaneously by a plurality of APs, a plurality of STAs, a plurality of UEs, a plurality of gNBs or base stations or the like. Some APs of the set may be configured to operate on a 320 mhz bandwidth while other APs may be configured to operate on a 160 mhz band. Channels may be aggregated to reach these bandwidths. Transmissions may be coordinated by sending NDPs by an AP or STA to another BSS and receiving sounding responses. If a response is positive, i.e. above a threshold, the AP or STA who sent the NDP may not send transmissions in that direction (using the same beam) in future transmissions to the BSS of which the AP or STA is a member. This information, including the location, selected beam, transmission time and feedback quantity/type/results may be shared among APs and among STAs. A responder of the NDP may broadcast the feedback to multiple BSSs when the NDP indicates to do so.

In an embodiment, time multiplexing may consider cell ID, hop order, or number of relay nodes between a UE and donor eNB. Relay nodes may be half or full duplex. UEs may also be half duplex or full duplex. In the event that a relay node transmits sync signals of one or more another nodes and itself, it may be possible for fixed nodes to convey a node identification (ID) based on the time synchronization between the two sync transmitted signals.

A UE may be in simultaneous communication with an LTE cell and an NR cell (and/or any other cell for that matter such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc.). In any event, a UE may be referred to as in dual connectivity, multi connectivity or may simply be said to have a supplementary uplink (or downlink) connection. The supplementary connection may require reports transmitted to the main (or supplementary) cell.

Cellular systems may include time division duplex (TDD) and frequency division duplex (FDD). In FDD systems, a UE may be both transmitting data and receiving data at the same time using different frequencies. Next generation systems may be more flexible in nature, thus allowing UEs to and cellular networks to determine duplexing schemes in a dynamic fashion. In this way, an optimum duplexing configuration may depend on traffic volume and quality of one or more links between the UE and the base station. UEs may operate in half duplex or full duplex mode in accordance with a traffic type, data priority, power level or the like. A mode may change, for example, for watching a movie, a UE may need substantial downlink resources with minimal uplink resources. Thus, a TDD mode may be employed. Of the UE switches to a two way video application, a 1:1 uplink/downlink allocation may be employed, and the network may instruct the UE to enter a FDD mode. A UE may be provided with a half-duplex pattern similar to a DRX pattern. The UE may switch to TDD from FDD and vise versa according to the pattern. The UE may provide feedback as to buffer status, etc. which may indicate whether the pattern needs to be adjusted. The pattern may also be adjusted based on signal-to-noise ratio and/or how much interference is occurring etc. For example, an interference level may be measured on a subband and if that interference is high, while the need for the subband is low, the UE may autonomously switch to abandon the subband. A switch to FDD may be determined based on a new multiplexing need, for example, additional data becomes available for transmission.

In medical applications a meter may be carried or place inside a body of a user. For example, a UE may be a blood glucose meter, insulin pump or simply or a cell phone. In this application, integrity of both the data and control information transmitted to/from the UE is critical. A medical device UE may first perform a secure boot procedure prior to enabling communication with a base station or other wireless device. This is to ensure the UE is in fact executing software which as not been tampered with. The UE may also perform an encryption checking process, a pairing or association process, and a verification of the operator. Operator verification may be established through visual confirmation (face recognition), voice commands, input via a keyboard, or even operator movement (for example, head or hand movement) and motions, for example, a game controller or other physical hand held controller may be avoided. Eye gaze or depth/zoom of an operator may be mapped distinctly from motion in some embodiments. Once an operator is authorized, the operator may be able to access a digital identification card or other payment access cards.

Operator verification may be performed via his/her eyes, in combination with checking the software hashes, one or more MAC addresses etc. In one embodiment, a UE may perform association based on a burned in address, for example, a MAC address for one device in combination with burned in addresses of other devices (Bluetooth chip, WiFi chip, etc.) In one embodiment, instead of providing a full MAC (or other burned in address) a device may provide a random portion to save space and/or avoid being tracked. Random portions may be used, or randomly generated MAC addresses may also be used. A STA or AP may perform a lookup on a random portion or random MAC Address to bind the MAC address to an IP address. In another embodiment, the STA or AP may simply store a table with MAC/IP pairs. This information may be shared in an ad-hoc fashion or may be transmitted to another STA wirelessly. Any device address disclosed herein may be provided via a low layer control format, for example, a DCI or another control information format.

Association may be performed via public key or shared key procedures.

Once a UE recognizes a particular standard using 802 or other technology standard, it may be possible to automatically detect the SIFS periods and transmit/receive accordingly. Support for a given standard should of course be provided to a base station.

In some embodiments, signals of LTE or NR may be precoded with more traditional signals of 802 type access schemes. For example, signals could be precoded with a length or duration and modulation/data rate. In some scenarios, beacon signals may provide information to a UE which indicates a number of active users, an average occupancy rate or any other signal which may convey to a UE the load placed on an access point or BSS. In this way, a UE which is not actively communicating with that AP, but rather may simply need to utilize spectrum for other endeavors, for example, communicating with a gNB or other cellular device, may learn of the likelihood that transmissions may be applicable on the unlicensed band. Similarly, the cellular devices may signal to the AP that there exist cellular UEs which are attempting to communicate in that band. Further, other UEs may provide direct communication information as to which BSS or which APs are not being utilized at a given instant. BSS and APs may be co-located, i.e. an AP may contain multiple BSSIDs each configured on one or more frequencies which may or may not overlap. An ability to use certain bands, for example, licensed bands and unlicensed bands may be reported and configured by the network.

In one embodiment, a UE may access the unlicensed band based on QoS. For example, for a brief high qos transmission, the UE may access the channel without listening. In one embodiment, a UE may employ a preamble of another technology of the unlicensed spectrum, for example, an 802.11 preamble (for example, including a PLOP preamble and/or PLOP header) indicative of a sync, symbol, service, length or the like, prior to subsequent transmissions. A UE may also modify the preamble, for example, by including duration or other information useful for securing the medium, but leaving off other information which is 802.11 specific. Instead, a UE may transmit other information in place of the 802.11 specific fields, for example, any one or more of the parameters disclosed herein may be included in the WiFi preamble. A legacy preamble may or may not be transmitted before any other transmission herein.

In NR-U, a UE may perform a listen before talk (LBT) procedure much like an LBT procedure performed in 802.11. Alternatively, a UE may decide not to perform a LBT procedure on unlicensed bands, for example 2.4, 5 ghz bands. One issue is that the unlicensed spectrum is going to become more and more congested as both licensed operators unlicensed operators and UEs are entering the unlicensed spectrum. In fact, services may be delivered across mobile network operators, in which some may be licensed or unlicensed. In one embodiment, a UE may sense not only a transmission instant, i.e. whether the medium is busy, but the UE may listed for an extended period of time and in one embodiment, may listen on multiple channels. This way, the UE may be able to determine whether or not a particular location/frequency/AP, etc is busy. If it is, the UE may choose to use licensed spectrum instead. Sensing may be performed on known bands of a particular technology or standard. For example, sensing may be performed on bands which are used by some protocols for channel hopping. In one embodiment, sensing may include decoding one or more headers or header formats to determine a duration or other information corresponding to the transmission. A UE may choose to transmit on channels which are unused. The UE may report to a cellular network the level of congestion in the unlicensed space. Based on the reported channel congestion condition, the network may signal indications such as a backoff indicator for the UE to use when attempting to use unlicensed spectrum in a particular channel access scheme or method.

A UE may out of order process downlink resources→uplink transmission, for example, by performing out of order HARQ operations. A UE may be scheduled for transmissions out of order HARQ for processes that vary in terms of priority. For example, a UE may receive a HARQ ACK for a second (or subsequent) transmission prior to receiving a HARQ ACK for a first uplink transmission. This may be due a higher priority of the second uplink transmission. This may be based on an MCS of the first and second transmission. For example, higher MCS may be ACKed first or subsequently.

For visible light communication (or any other communication for that matter, a UE may report a capability to support any one or more of the following codes or coding schemes: Hierarchical Codes; LCD to camera Manchester coding; BCH Code; Alpha channel coding; RGB coding; Overlay coding ; Quick response (QR) codes; lnterframe Erasure Codes; QR codes ; Robust dynamic coding; Rainbar coding; Rateless coding; Texture codes; Alpha39 coding; Manchester coding; Raptor Codes; Reed-Solomon coding; binary convolutional coding (BCC). Supported modulation techniques may include: Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM); Pulse Width Modulation (PWM); Phase Shift Keying; Under-sampled Differential Phase Shift On-Off Keying (UDPSOOK); On-Off Keying (OOK); Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), Color shift keying (CSK); Under-sampled Frequency Shift On-Off Keying (UFSOOK); Under-Sampled Quadrature Amplitude Modulation with Subcarrier Modulation (UQAMSM); 16 QAM; 64 QAM; 128 QAM; 256 QAM; 512 QAM/1024 QAM; 2048 QAM; 4096 QAM; Hybrid OOK-PWM; Spatially-Modulated Space-Time (SM-ST); Layered Space-Time Code (L-STC); Spatial-Temporal Complementary Frames (S-TCF); Pixel translucency modulation; Spatial Discrete Multitone (SDMT). PDUs may indicate modulation scheme in a preamble. Modulation schemes may be indicated in the alternative, i.e. one or another. Any scheme may by hybrid in nature and employ a combination of two or more schemes. For example, a single packet, frame PPDU, or the like may employ multiple (for example, 2-3) modulation methods wherein a first modulation method is a lower speed/coding than a following modulation method. The second (or third) portion may be sent with a higher or lower power or at a different beam or angle, etc. In an embodiment, a combined analog/digital method may be employed. Any one of these modulations techniques and coding techniques may vary as the transmitter employs HARQ. Any one may change based on a redundancy or redundancy version for transmission. Channel probing may be performed.

Circuitry may include one or more of a circular buffer, multiplexor, first in first out buffer, last in last out buffer, last in first out buffer, strings, memory, state machines, Multiplexer/ALU, priority queue, microprocessor, registers, microcode, threaded pipeline, bus, field programmable gate array (FPGA), application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), baseband processor, video processor or other electronic circuit for that matter. Logical calculations may be performed on any parameter or parameters. ANDing, ORing, XORing, or the like may be performed in a logical or Boolean fashion. Circuitry may include interleavers such as LDPC block interleavers. Circuitry may be configured to generate a random number as input or compute a modulus operation. Circuitry may include equalizers for interference cancellation or other techniques. Equalizers may include spatial temporal linear equalizers including zero-forcing (ZF) and minimum mean square error (MMSE). Circuitry may also include amplifier(s) such as a power amplifier. Video circuitry may include a video processing unit (VPU) and a graphics processing unit (GPU). A display may be coupled to the GPU. Circuitry may include ciphering and deciphering circuitry. Circuitry may refer to buffer, for example, a time sensitive networking buffer which may be supported by a UE or STA.

Embodiments disclosed herein may have been referenced using the term user equipment (UE). However, one of skill in the art will recognize that the term UE may apply to devices like drones, robots (i.e. telemedicine, metering, etc.), virtual reality devices including games, other motion control implementation and the like. The terms UE and STA may be used interchangeably herein. Other devices may include traffic controllers, traffic lamps and street signs. Street signs and traffic lamps may be portable, for example, designed for use in construction environments. In some environments, the traffic lights may communicate and may turn a two way road into a one way road by alternating a flow of traffic. Each sign may signal to vehicles, via both light based communication (red, green, yellow) and via radio frequency communication. The signs may alter traffic flow, perform software updates, and deliver information to vehicles based on information received wirelessly from a base station, server or the like. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method performed by a first wireless device, the method comprising: determining a fixed length sequence of bits corresponding to a release version identifier; determining cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits based on the fixed length sequence of bits; transmitting a frame, to a second wireless device, on one of a plurality of wireless links established between the first wireless device and the second wireless device, wherein the frame comprises a preamble portion comprising a signal field, wherein the frame comprises the CRC bits, wherein the signal field comprises a first portion and a second portion; wherein the first portion comprises the fixed length sequence of bits and the second portion does not comprise the fixed length sequence of bits; wherein the first portion is transmitted before the second portion; wherein the second portion includes bits indicative of characteristic information corresponding to the release version.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the fixed length sequence of bits is determined from a plurality of fixed length sequences, wherein each one of the plurality of fixed length sequences has a same bit length and corresponds to a different release version identifier.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving system information, from the second wireless device, wherein the system information includes a plurality of change count values, each one of the plurality of change count values corresponding to different access points (APs), wherein the second wireless device is one of the APs; and maintaining a record of the plurality of change count values corresponding to the different APs.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the signal field includes bits specifying a modulation and coding scheme, wherein each one of the plurality of wireless links corresponds to a different media access control (MAC) address of the first wireless device.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the second wireless device is not capable of interpreting the second portion, wherein each one of the plurality of wireless links correspond to a different media access control (MAC) addresses of the second wireless device.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the frame is group addressed; wherein the preamble portion comprises another signal field having a variable length resource allocation.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving capability information from the second wireless device, wherein the capability information indicates whether the second wireless device is capable of transmitting and receiving data at the same time.
 8. The method of claim 6, wherein at least one receiver of the frame is incapable of decoding the second portion.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of links are on different channels.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein the first wireless device is configured for half duplex wireless operation.
 11. A method performed by a first wireless device, the method comprising: determining a sequence of bits corresponding to a release version identifier; determining cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits based on the sequence of bits; transmitting a frame, to a second wireless device, on one of a plurality of wireless links established between the first wireless device and the second wireless device, wherein the frame comprises a signal field having a first portion and a second portion; wherein the first portion comprises the sequence of bits and the second portion does not comprise the sequence of bits; wherein the second portion is appended to the first portion; wherein the signal field comprises the CRC bits.
 12. The method of claim 11, further comprising: transmitting another signal field simultaneously with the signal field, wherein the another signal field is duplicative of the signal field.
 13. The method of claim 11, further comprising: broadcasting a first configuration change count value corresponding to the first MAC address and a second configuration change count value corresponding to the second MAC address, wherein the first configuration change count value and second configuration change count value are different configuration change count values.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein the first configuration change count value is broadcasted on a first link of the plurality of wireless links and the second configuration change count is broadcasted on a second link of the plurality of wireless links; wherein the first link and second link are different links.
 15. The method of claim 11, wherein the sequence of bits corresponding to the release version identifier is stored in memory of the first wireless device; wherein the first wireless device and second wireless device are associated with each other; wherein a shared key is used the encryption or decryption of data over the plurality of wireless links.
 16. The method of claim 11, further comprising: performing an association procedure with the second wireless device, wherein the association procedure is performed based on one of the first MAC address or the second MAC address in combination with a third MAC address of the first wireless device.
 17. The method of claim 16, wherein the first MAC address, second MAC address and third MAC address are burned in MAC addresses.
 18. A first wireless device comprising: a receiver configured to receive a first frame, from a second wireless device, the first frame having a first preamble portion, wherein the first preamble portion comprises a first signal field comprising a first portion and a second portion, wherein the first portion comprises a fixed length sequence of bits which convey a release version identifier and the second portion does not comprise the fixed length sequence of bits; and circuitry configured to perform a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) on the fixed length sequence of bits which convey the release version identifier; wherein the second portion follows the first portion.
 19. The first wireless device of claim 18, further comprising: circuitry configured to determine whether to decode the second portion, based on a capability of the first wireless device.
 20. The first wireless device of claim 18, wherein the receiver is further configured to receive a second frame, from the second wireless device, the second frame having a second preamble portion, wherein the second preamble portion of the second frame comprises a second signal field comprising a third portion and a fourth portion, wherein the third portion comprises the fixed length sequence of bits which convey the release version identifier and the fourth portion does not comprise the fixed length sequence of bits; wherein the first frame and the second frame are received on different links. 